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Thursday, July 21, 2005

It's Election time...

For most students in New Zealand this is of no concern, but for the highschool students that are over 18 and for tertiary students it should be a big deal.

Deciding who to vote for can be difficult, and depending on which party you vote for you could get a good or bad deal. Having said that, every politician lies to get voted in and then rarely ever does what they said they would.

A topic that is sure to heat up as the election draws near is student loans and debt. Currently, the student debt stands at $7.4 million with a projected total of $14.9 million by 2020. Not only is it draining tax payers money, but it also puts a strain on the individual who received a student loan to pay it back. Read this Green Party speech to find out the 'detrimental' effect on people that student loans have. I couldn't quite finish the article as I have a hard time taking the Green Party serious. The Ministry of Education website has all the figures on student loans that you would ever want to read; stuff like how much certain loans are, how long different genders and ethnicities take to pay them back, etc. For example, this repayment estimator says that I could be 41 by the time I pay back my loan. Well, that's what they think. I have heard that if you die with a student loan debt that it is cleared and your surviving family does not have to pay it. If that's the case, when I'm an old man I'll die oweing the government millions!!!

That's where politics come into it. Labour, who has been in for what seems like ages, has not yet revealed what their student loan gimmick will be for the election. Not that I will take notice, if they wanted my vote that much they should have changed their scheme a long time ago. National have already released their plan to lure in the votes of the youth of New Zealand, read this New Zealand Herald article about their student loan scheme. Interestingly though, National introduced the student loan scheme in 1992.

To find out the latest news, views and politics regarding the upcoming election be sure to visit the New Zealand Herald election site.